This application claims priority to an application entitled xe2x80x9cVoice Dialing Method for Mobile Telephone Terminalxe2x80x9d filed in the Korean Industrial Property Office on Dec. 30, 1998 and assigned Ser. No. 98-60792, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a mobile telephone terminal, and in particular, to a voice dialing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
For voice dialing in a portable phone, which is one kind of mobile telephone terminal, a user registers in the portable telephone a spoken name for dialing (hereinafter, referred to as a dialing utterance), a telephone number corresponding to the dialing utterance, and a name in characters which represents the dialing utterance. When dialing, the user speaks the dialing utterance according to a dialing utterance input notification so that the portable phone automatically dials the corresponding telephone number by speech recognition.
The voice dialing can be performed only if the user remembers a preregistered dialing utterance correctly. When he forgets the dialing utterance, he may give up voice dialing or speak a dialing utterance similar to an intended dialing utterance. Upon reception of a similar dialing utterance, the portable phone determines whether the dialing utterance has been registered. If it has not been registered, the portable phone notifies the user to speak a dialing utterance again or that the dialing has not been registered.
There are many well-known speech recognition techniques for determining whether a spoken name corresponds with a registered dialing utterance. Such techniques generally rely on quantifying properties of the utterance and comparing the quantified values. If the compared values correspond to within a predetermined amount and/or meet other quantified evaluation criteria, it is concluded that the two words are the same. Such correspondence will be generally referred to as a xe2x80x9csimilarity valuexe2x80x9d below. One similarity value is referred to as being xe2x80x9chigherxe2x80x9d than another when it uses an evaluation criteria that is stricter for the chosen technique.
For example, if the user registers a dialing utterance of xe2x80x9cAnn""sxe2x80x9d, a corresponding telephone number, and a name in characters, forgets the dialing utterance, and then speaks a dialing utterance xe2x80x9cAnnxe2x80x9d for voice dialing, the portable phone notifies the user to speak the dialing utterance again or that the dialing utterance has not been registered because xe2x80x9cAnnxe2x80x9d is not a recognized dialing utterance. Therefore, voice dialing may be impossible unless the user remembers the correct dialing utterance.
In the case that a plurality of similar dialing utterances are registered in the portable phone, the portable phone cannot ensure accurate speech recognition. If very similar dialing utterances xe2x80x9cJoanxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cJoannexe2x80x9d are registered, they often cannot be accurately discriminated by recognition of user voice, resulting in dialing a wrong number.
Therefore, a conventional voice dialing service requires the user to remember a correct dialing utterance and may dial a wrong number by misrecognizing a dialing utterance spoken by a user when a plurality of similar dialing utterances have been registered.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a voice dialing method which can be used even if a user cannot remember an intended dialing utterance correctly.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a voice dialing method for a mobile telephone terminal, in which an intended telephone number is dialed despite registration of a plurality of similar dialing utterances.
To achieve the above objects, there is provided a voice dialing method in a mobile telephone terminal. Upon reception of the dialing utterance, it is determined whether there are one or more pre-registered dialing utterances similar to an input dialing utterance within a first similarity value. If there are more than one dialing utterances within the first similarity value, it is determined whether there is a pre-registered dialing utterance similar to the input dialing utterance within a second similarity value. If there is no dialing utterance within the second similarity value, names represented by the dialing utterances within the first similarity value are displayed. If a user selects one of the displayed names, a registered telephone number corresponding to the selected name is dialed. If there exists one dialing utterance within the second similarity value, a registered telephone number corresponding to the dialing utterance within the second similarity value is dialed.